


intro to resolution

by lgbtrobed



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Slice of Life, really more just like a sex mention honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:54:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26931727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lgbtrobed/pseuds/lgbtrobed
Summary: (And Troy knows now that love is even more powerful than he’d imagined it to be. After all, it can resurrect the dead.)It takes Troy 3 years to sail around the world. Here are 3 points in Troy and Abed’s relationship. Spoiler alert: it comes full circle.
Relationships: Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 29
Kudos: 157





	intro to resolution

Ultimately, it takes 3 years. 

That isn’t Troy’s intention. Not at first. 

He looks it up on what’ll end up being the second-most restless night of his entire life, right after Pierce’s bequeathment. _How long does it take to sail around the world?_

_Sailing around the world takes between 3 to 5 years. It can be done incredibly fast: the world record is 40 days on a trimaran. On average, most people that take the time to do some sightseeing need about 3.5 years._

He blocks out everything on the page except two words: 40 days. His heart tentatively lifts at the sight of them. He’d barely comprehended the terms laid out in the will when they were first explained, but he’s pretty sure there aren’t any stipulations about how long he has to be gone or what sights he has to see. If he really wanted to, he could be done in less than two months’ time. He could be a millionaire in 40 days, and then he could be back home. Back with his family, back with his friends, back with his… 

With his best friend.

_God. Abed._

Troy wants to cry just thinking about him. Imagining those big, gentle brown eyes gazing after him as the Childish Tycoon pulls out of the Greendale faculty parking lot is enough to make his own eyes swim. 

He makes his mind up right then. 40 days is absolutely a long enough time to be gone. 

And then there’s a knock. A soft, hesitant tapping on his bedroom door followed by a quiet, “...Troy?” And it’s such a warm wash of relief hearing that it’s Abed’s voice, as if it could’ve even been anyone else.

“Come in,” he calls back just as quietly, because Annie doesn’t take kindly to being woken up in the middle of the night. Or, in this case, 2am.

“Dude, check this out,” he whispers excitedly as Abed shuffles over and joins him on the bed, angling his laptop so they can both see the screen. “I could do this whole thing in 40 days, isn’t that great? That’s no time. Maybe I could even try breaking the world record, do you think I could do that? Then when I get back we can do something totally awesome with Pierce’s money! I could fund one of your movies! Or we could move to a bigger apartment and have a full-size Dreamatorium again! Or we could start with just buying, like, a new toaster oven, it’s not like I have to spend it all at once…”

He looks up at Abed and his smile fades. 

“What’s wrong?” He whispers.

Abed’s wringing his hands over in his lap and quickly shaking his head back and forth, very clearly overwhelmed. Troy almost expects him to start whining, to be carried away as his usual whirlwind of thoughts grows into a full-blown tornado, but he isn't. He does keep looking distressed, though.

“Abed?” He tries again. “Buddy?”

“You can’t do it in 40 days,” is Abed’s response. Troy frowns.

“You’re trying to cheat the narrative,” he continues before Troy can try to argue. “You’d be robbing yourself of a whole character arc, and I can’t…” he shakes his head again and breathes in unevenly, “I can’t let you do that because of me, because I know it’s because of me. You have to let yourself be the hero of your story, Troy.”

Abed looks like he’s in physical pain saying that. 

“What if it’s not just because of you?” He asks after a relatively long, uncomfortable silence. “What if I don’t want to be away from home? What if I’m gone for too long and someone dies? What if I’ve never been to the ocean before and I’m just now realizing that it’s basically a giant lake, and lakes are my third biggest fear? Or what if-”

He gets cut off.

Abed shuts him up by pressing his lips to Troy’s, so fast and so seemingly out of nowhere that it shocks him into silence for a split second. Then without thinking, he whimpers and leans into it, and just as his lips part, Abed pulls away, his eyes wide and terrified.

Troy’s heart races. His blood’s thrumming hot and fast through his veins and his whole body’s practically vibrating with how much he wants this. It’s all very sudden— at least, he thinks it is?— but whatever he’s feeling, he simply doesn’t have _time_ to do anything besides give himself over to Abed right now. He knows that he needs to act fast, do something before Abed can stop lingering.

“Don’t freak out,” he whispers pleadingly. “I want this. Want you.” 

And somehow that’s enough to draw Abed right back in.

Later, his breath hitches when Abed cums inside him, and he digs his nails into his back as he follows right after. And tears trickle warmly down his cheeks as he feels the whole universe implode in his chest, and he doesn’t point out Abed’s shaky shoulders and glassy eyes, because he doesn’t want him to be embarrassed. And he doesn’t say _I love you_ even though it’s playing on repeat in his mind, uninterrupted, just that and nothing more.

_Abed... I love you. Abed, I love you. Abed,iloveyouAbediloveyouabediloveyouiloveyoui—_

(There’s a single interruption, actually. It only happens once. A faint echo, something reverberating from a deep and inaccessible part of his consciousness, Abed’s voice: _I know.)_

“Tell me to stay and I will,” is what he says instead, when he’s draped over Abed like a weighted blanket, cheek pressed to his bare chest. He doesn’t actually see Abed shake his head, but he feels it and it makes his heart sink.

“Remember the pillow fight?” Abed asks.

Troy nods and waits for Abed to explain further.

But he doesn’t.

  
  


*

  
  


_We fought because you were sick of playing my sidekick,_ Abed finally clarifies when they’re tangled up in bedsheets on Troy’s first night home. _You were yielding to me all the time and I was letting you and we almost lost each other. I couldn’t risk that happening again. Even if I had to die and live as a clone for a few years. Now I know that it was the right thing to do._

And it’s real Abed who says that to him, he knows that. All lingering traces of Clone Abed were thoroughly exorcised as soon as their eyes had met that morning on the dock. He knows this because Clone Abed was programmed to not need Troy, and this Abed has hardly let Troy out of his sight all day, like he’s afraid he’ll disappear into thin air if he looks away for too long. This Abed clings to him and nuzzles him and kisses his teary cheeks, and kisses his forehead and kisses his mouth and kisses his neck and hands and anywhere else he can reach. This Abed, real Abed, _his_ Abed, loves him.

(And Troy knows now that love is even more powerful than he’d imagined it to be. After all, it can resurrect the dead.)

  
  


*

  
  


After spending those 3 years on the water, he’d expected to never want to go floating about again unless he absolutely had to. He hadn't realized before just how _good_ it feels to stand on solid ground, but now that he knows, he’ll never take it for granted again. It's steady, unmoving, anchoring him right where he’s supposed to be. It makes him feel like a real person.

But he’d been slightly wrong about that. He misses the water sometimes, if only because it became so familiar, and there’s comfort in familiarity. So occasionally he takes the Childish Tycoon out for a ride, breathes in some salt air and soaks up some sun for an hour or so before heading back to his reality.

Because he loves his reality. He really loves it so much.

The marina is relatively empty when he docks, which is how he likes it. It’s why he tends to fit sailing in right after an early morning workout— that, and it’s conveniently on his way home from the gym. He can’t pull it off _all_ the time, but sometimes he thinks it’s cool to be awake before most of the rest of the world. That’s another thing he’d discovered on his great sea voyage.

Of course, he only wants to enjoy his solitude for a little while. He steps into the apartment just as the LA sun’s really starting to grow hot and shivers from the drop in temperature once he’s fully in the air-conditioning.

The first thing he does is glance over at the kitchen table, which has never really functioned as a kitchen table since they eat all their meals in front of the TV. That’s a good thing, because right now it’s completely cluttered with crumpled papers and flash drives and coffee mugs, scripts and pens and highlighters, and Troy _knows_ Abed must have burnt himself out completely last night, because he didn’t even remember to plug his laptop in to charge before stumbling off to bed. 

What time that was, he’s not exactly sure. He just knows that at 3am, when he woke up to pee, Abed was on his fourth cup of coffee and wouldn’t give in to Troy’s pleas for him to come get some rest. And when he woke up again at 5, he’d found Abed burrowed into his side of the bed, so sound asleep that Troy’s alarm hadn’t stirred him one bit. So, somewhere in that timeframe. Later than any person should be awake and working. But on the days and nights that Abed can’t stop, Troy's come to accept that it's really just a matter of waiting til he runs out of steam. 

...Speaking of that.

Troy stays relatively quiet as he kicks off his shoes and tosses the contents of his gym bag into the washing machine, before wandering down the hallway and into the bedroom to find Abed still asleep, just as he’d expected. Dark eyelashes fanning lightly over freckled cheeks, lips slightly parted, breathing slowly and deeply and peacefully. He looks like he hasn’t moved an inch since Troy last saw him, and something about that is kind of heart-meltingly adorable.

But Abed’s not the only one who needs recuperation. He’s been on such a grind this past week that Troy’s hardly gotten more than a kiss on the cheek. He wonders if it’s possible to die of cuddle starvation, because if it is, he might be in critical condition.

He’s quick to pad over to the bed and slip back into his side, careful not to jostle anything too much before he scoots closer to the middle. Abed’s completely dead to the world, facing away from Troy with his cheek smushed against his pillow, and Troy just can’t help himself. He reaches out and places his hand on Abed’s shoulder, smoothing his thumb in circles with a firm yet gentle pressure. Abed’s breathing falters for a second and his eyes twitch ever so slightly. After a moment, he makes a small disgruntled noise and then promptly reaches for Troy’s hand. Troy smiles. That’s sleepy-Abed-speak for _I’m not very pleased to be conscious right now, but come here._ He gladly complies, shifting forward and down and fitting himself snugly against his boyfriend. Abed rolls back towards him a little bit on instinct so that their legs slot together just right, and Troy sighs, winds his arm securely around Abed’s waist and kisses the side of his neck. Abed hums his approval.

“Hey, baby,” he murmurs, and then presses another kiss to the same spot. “Did you finish last night?”

“Mhm,” Abed mumbles back, even less coherently. “First draft's done.” 

Troy sighs and nuzzles him. “Good. I missed you.”

“I didn’t go anywhere,” Abed says quietly. He sounds a little more awake, though still thoroughly exhausted, and there’s a tiny trace of vulnerability in his voice— so slight that Troy wouldn’t think twice about it talking to anyone else. “I’m never gonna-” he starts and then gets cut off by a yawn, and it’s precious, and Troy holds him tighter. “...Never gonna go anywhere,” he finishes.

Troy’s heart swells and just about bursts. He might explain later, when Abed’s not so tired and when he’s not so suddenly emotional, that he wasn’t speaking literally. But for now he lets his eyes fall shut and whispers, “I know. I love you.”

And Abed whispers, “I know. I love you too.” 

And then he drifts back to sleep, and Troy follows soon after, nestled behind the man that he just knows he’s never going to let go of, ever again.

Ultimately, it takes 3 years.

That isn’t Troy’s intention. Not at first.

But Abed promises him it was worth every second of the wait.

He feels pretty inclined to agree.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! this is my first fic for the community fandom and i love these guys very much, so i hope i did them some justice 💙
> 
> find me on tumblr @[lgbtrobed](https://lgbtrobed.tumblr.com/) (community sideblog) or @[highschoolmusicals](https://highschoolmusicals.tumblr.com/) (main blog.) and if you liked this fic, please consider [reblogging](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/lgbtrobed/631603627652448256) it!


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